Memories of those laborious days at Fleetwick Quay are not only of carpentering, painting, and plumbing. Sam Prawle provided an intermittent accompaniment of anecdote and observation which it is impossible to separate from the record of work done. During the dinner-hour he would sometimes begin and finish a considerable narrative. On the day when we lowered our tanks into position he illustrated his theme that people may put themselves to a great deal of unnecessary trouble by telling us an episode in the life of ’Ould Gladstone,’ the white mare at Wick House. Here is the yarn:
‘I dare say yaou don’t fare to remember ould Gladstone at the Ferry Boat Inn down at Wick House twenty year ago. Wonnerful little mare, she were and lived to be thirty year ould, she did. When ould Amos Staines sould the inn a young feller from Lunnon bought it—a reg’lar cockney, he were, and den’t knaow nawthen about b’ots nor farmin’ nor nawthen, and a course ’e ’ad to keep a man to work the ferry. What ’e come for I can’t rightly say, ’cept he said ’e allus fancied keepin’ a pub.
‘The lies that young feller used to tell us chaps, same as fishermen, bargemen, and drudgermen what used the inn, abaout Lunnon was a fair masterpiece. Mighty clever he thought he were, and wonnerful fond o’ thraowin’ ’is weight abaout, which ’e den’t knaow ’is own weight.
‘Well, twenty year ago come next March, in the forepart o’ the month, me and Jim and Lishe Appleby, the two brothers what ’ad the little ould Viper, ’ad a stroke of luck over a little salvage job with a yacht, and a course we spent a bit extry at the Ferry. Cockney Smith—leastways, that was what we allus called ’im—’eard all abaout our salvage job, and nearly got ’imself put in the river by the things what ’e said abaout it. Jim and Lishe ’ould ’ave done it, for they was wonnerful fond of a glass and a joke, as the sayin’ is, but I ’ouldn’t let ’em, cos I reckoned Cockney Smith might ’ave the law of ’em. A wonnerful disagreeable chap was Cockney Smith; ’e used to read bits aout of newspapers abaout robberies and that, and then ’e’d say ’e supposed they was salvage jobs.
‘Well, not long arterwards ’e ’ad a salvage job ’imself. Jim and Lishe hired ould Gladstone and Cockney Smith’s tumbril to go to a niece’s weddin’ at Northend. They come back abaout seven o’clock o’ the evening, wonnerful and lively, and just where the road bends afore you come to the Ferry that was bangy and dark they some’ow got ould Gladstone and the tumbril in the crick. Yaou knaow the place I mean, sir—jist where the road runs alongside the crick on the top of the sea-wall. A course the place is as bare as my ’and, as the sayin’ is, for there ain’t no tree, nor hedge, nor fence, nor nawthen; but none the more for that, ould Gladstone ’ad bin that road for twenty year, and there ain’t a mite a doubt but what she’d a brought they chaps back safe enough if they’d left she alone.
‘But there yaou are, yaou knaow what them weddin’s are, don’t yer, sir? Well, there was ould Gladstone nearly up to her belly in mud, and she den’t struggle, for the artful ould thing knaowed that, do, she’d sink deeper. The tumbril was nearly a top o’ she, and Jim and Lishe was mud from head to foot—in their shore-goin’ togs, too. They come along to the Ferry, and afore Cockney Smith opened ’is mouth ould Lishe says, “Look at here, landlord, what your damned ould mare’s done to we. Spoilt our best clothes, she ’as!”
“Where’s my mare and cart?” says Cockney Smith.
“Ould Gladstone’s stuck in the crick and the tumbril’s atop o’ she,” says Jim.
‘“Do yaou mean to say you’ve left that pore animal there?” says Cockney Smith.